HOW LEAN TRANSFORMATION PROJECTS CAN SUCCEED: THE KEY FACTORS ACTING DURING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN CONSULTANTS AND CUSTOMERS

Abstract

The dissertation is the result of the study and analysis of the interaction between the consulting company and the customer companies who are "asking" to change. The goal has been to find and highlight the key factors that before, during and after the development of a lean production project, are able to determine its success. These factors include therefore a wide spectrum of aspects: on one hand, personal and relational components among people; on the other hand, the pre-existing organizational and structural component of the companies is fundamental, as is the technical level of complexity of the project. The theoretical framework chosen to analyse and discuss these issues is the literature on the Toyota Production System and Lean Thinking, as they fully frame the context of action of a lean project. Reference was taken by scientific articles about how to introduce lean logics into companies and about consulting companies ‘approach. The focus was therefore put on how to build a positive relationship between consultants and customers, what were the ingredients needed to cooperate, how a common goal should be aligned and settled in order to establish a profitable future collaboration. The analysis of the literature had the aim to highlight which factors lead to the success of a lean project. Thus, it went deeper to study the factors that constitute a push, a facilitation to the work of the consultants and those that lead instead to a blockage or a slowdown of the project. Through an empirical analysis using multiple case studies, three actual projects carried out by a consulting company were selected in order to show the influence of those factors in real projects, and how those factors can determine the success or the failure of the project itself. At the end it tried to highlight those decisive factors that could led, after the success of the project, to the future continuation in the path of improvement by companies without the need for external guidance. To conclude a final pattern is perhaps developed. It takes back the common structure of consulting projects and show which factors can be found in every phase of the project. In this way, the consultant knows where putting much attention and has a guide to deal with them along the work.